It's Cantor vs. Boehner again

It’s a storyline their party hates but here it is again at the end of a long year: John Boehner and Eric Cantor are on opposite sides of key issues.

They’re not at war, but as Congress heads into its final stretch of the year, the No. 1 and No. 2 House Republicans are in different places on how to move its party toward extending jobless benefits and the payroll tax cut, further complicating a tenuous year-end plan.

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The latest drama: the year-end extender’s package.

Aides to both men try to downplay the distance, but interviews with about a dozen close aides and confidants in leadership paint a picture of leaders traveling on disparate tracks.

Cantor sees himself — and others see him — as playing a role as the rank and file’s lobbyist at the leadership table. He has been meeting with GOP lawmakers in an attempt to uncover what will get them to support an extension of a payroll tax holiday their party doesn’t like and a jobless benefits program they see as broken.

Boehner is trying to balance Republican desires with the eventuality of creating a package that could pass the Senate by next Friday.

In the next few days, they need to come together to decide what they can tack onto the bill to ensure its passage — and maintain some unity within the ranks.

They’ve also been on opposite sides on the issue of repatriation — corporations bringing foreign profits back to the U.S. at lower tax rates. Cantor has been vocal in his support for the process, it’s a favorite of K Street and roughly a quarter of the Republican Conference has signed a letter supporting the idea.

But Boehner is staunchly opposed to tacking it onto the year-end agreement — the optics would be terrible, he thinks, since the Congressional Budget Offices says it adds tens of billions of dollars to the budget. Suddenly, a bill that cuts money would become one that adds to the deficit.

This tension — how to get the bill through the House Republican Conference and to the Senate — came to a head at a daily management meeting in Boehner’s office suite Wednesday. Boehner increased his offer, saying he would agree to extend a provision that allows small businesses to write off certain expenses. Cantor is still pushing for repatriation over Boehner’s strenuous objections. The strength of Republicans’ desire could force repatriation into a package House Republicans send to the Senate.